In the meantime, the Sadharan Samaj, which broke off The Sadharan Samaj.from Keshub's party in 1878, has been going on with no small vigor. Vagaries, either in doctrine or rites, have been carefully shunned; its partisans profess a pure Theistic creed and labor diligently in the cause of social reform. Their position is nearly that of Unitarian Christianity, and we fear they are not at present approximating to the full belief of the Church Catholic.
Movements in western India.Very similar in character to the Brahmo Somaj is the Prarthana Somaj in western India. As far back as 1850, or a little earlier, Tenets of the Prarthana Sabha.there was formed a society called the Prarthana Sabha (Prayer-meeting). Its leading tenets were as follows:
1. I believe in one God. 2. I renounce idol-worship. 3. I will do my best to lead a moral life. 4. If I commit any sin through the weakness of my moral nature I will repent of it and ask the pardon of God.
The society, after some time, began to languish; but in 1867 it was revived under the name of Prarthana Somaj. Its chief branches are in Bombay, Poona, Ahmedabad, and Surat.
An interesting movement called the Arya Samaj was commenced a few years ago by a Pandit—Dayanand Arya Samaj.Sarasvati. He received the Vedas as fully inspired, but maintained that they taught monotheism—Agni, Indra, and all the rest being merely different names of God. It was a desperate effort to save the reputation of the ancient books; but, as all Sanskrit scholars saw at a glance, the whole idea was a delusion. The Pandit is now dead; and the Arya Samaj may not long survive him.
At the time we write we hear of an attempt to defend idolatry and caste made by men of considerable education.
The so-called "Theosophists" have, for several years, been active in India. Of existing Theosophists.religions, Buddhism is their natural ally. They are atheists. A combination which they formed with the Arya Samaj speedily came to an end.
Lastly, the followers of Mr. Bradlaugh are diligent in supplying their books to Indian students.
Poor India! No wonder if her mind is bewildered as she listens to such a Babel of voices. The state of things in India now strikingly resembles that which existed in the Roman Empire at the rise of Christianity; when East and West were brought into the closest contact, and a great conflict of systems of thought took place in consequence.
But even as one hostile form of gnostic belief rose after another, and rose only to fall—and as the greatest and best-disciplined foe of early Christianity—- the later Platonism—gave way before the steady, irresistible march of gospel truth, so—we have every reason to hope—it will be yet again. The Christian feels his heart swell in his breast as he thinks what, in all human probability, India will be a century, or even half a century, hence. O what a new life to that fairest of Eastern lands when she casts herself in sorrow and supplication at the feet of the living God, and then rises to proclaim to a listening world